Gigabyte G1.Sniper 2: Military-Style Gaming LGA1155 Mainboard. Page 4

Gigabyte G1.Sniper 2 mainboard is based on the latest and most functionally rich chipset for LGA1155 platform available today – Intel Z68 Express. The distinguishing feature of this product is its unique design, rich accessories set, and extensive functionality delivered by the chipset and the latest developments from Creative Technology and Bigfoot Networks.

“Advanced Voltage Settings” sub-section allows adjusting the voltages. The processor voltage may be locked at a certain value or may be increased by adding a certain value to the nominal setting. In the latter case, even if you change any of the voltages during overclocking, the mainboard will leave all Intel power-saving technologies up and running. In idle mode the mainboard will lower not only the processor clock frequency multiplier, but also the CPU Vcore. However, in this case we can’t counteract the processor Vcore drop under heavy load. Multi-Steps Load-Line parameter will be unavailable, which means that it will only work when we set the processor core voltage to a fixed permanent value. By the way, you can not only increase the voltages, but also set them lower than the nominal, which may be very handy in some cases. For example, if you need to have your CPU work at lower frequencies or if you use low-voltage memory modules.

The contents of the “Standard CMOS Features” are as standard as its name.

“Advanced BIOS Features” section offers you to choose the boot-up devices order and adjust a few other parameters:

“Integrated Peripherals” section has a long list of options for configuring additional onboard controllers.

“Power Management Setup” has pretty common parameters:

“PC Health Status” section reports the current voltages, temperatures and fan rotation speeds. Gigabyte mainboards retained their ability to adjust the rotation speed of three-pin fans, too. A while ago, it could only be done automatically, but they have recently introduced an option for manual adjustment in the BIOS. Here you can also disable the real-time temperature control for some diodes with the help of Easy Tune 6 utility.

You can get access to some additional features if you use specific functional keys in the main window of Gigabyte’s BIOS. By pressing F9 you will display system information on your screen.

You can also press F11 to save one of the eight full BIOS settings profiles. Each profile may be assigned a descriptive name, and if you are trying to overwrite a profile, you will be warned. You can load a profile from a menu by pressing F12. Besides manually saved profiles, the mainboard automatically saves all configurations that passed the startup POST successfully and they can also be restored if necessary. You can also save and load profiles using external media.

By pressing F8 you will launch the built-in BIOS updater – Q-Flash Utility.

The BIOS of Gigabyte mainboards is pretty convenient to work with and has all parameters necessary for overclocking and system fine-tuning. It is a little sad that Gigabyte mainboards on Intel Z68 Express chipset lost their ability to deal with the processor Vcore drop under heavy load. Also, the BIOS could use a few options for configuring Gigabyte’s proprietary technologies, such as dynamic adjustment of the number of active phases in the CPU voltage regulator circuitry depending on the CPU utilization. Other mainboard makers have already done it, and Gigabyte mainboards still require Dynamic Energy Saver utility to be installed. As for the brand spanking new EFI BIOS and computer mouse support, the boards use Hybrid EFI Technology to provide support for 3+ TB HDDs, and you can always use Gigabyte Touch BIOS for added convenience.